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Chocoholics Rejoice
Forget the apple. If any sinning went on the Garden of Eden, it had to be a big bite of a forbidden chocolate bar. Eating anything that tastes so sinfully good deserves punishment, right?
Not necessarily. Chocoholics can rejoice in a study that showed chocolate is a good source of flavonoids, the same antioxidants found in tea. Antioxidants have been shown to reduce heart disease
and possibly cancer risk by protecting against the oxidation of cells by free radicals. Tea drinkers have already have been shown to have lower rates of heart disease.
Dutch doctors studied more than 6,000 people to analyze the antioxidants in the tea and chocolate they drank. They checked for catechins, which are in the flavonoids family. The doctors found that
chocolate has four times the amount of antioxidants as tea. Dark chocolate has more catechins than milk chocolate, and both surpassed tea.
Dark chocolate also has less fat than milk chocolate. And cocoa butter, a main ingredient of chocolate, has a special fat called steric acid that doesn't contribute to cholesterol formation.
"Drinking a cup of tea and eating a chocolate cookie might be not only enjoyable but healthy as well," the doctors wrote in the British medical journal Lancet.
Finally, researchers have also found that the flavonoids in dark chocolate improve the functioning of cells in the arteries that prevent plaque buildup and stimulate a substance that helps
dilate the arteries. So eating a small amount of dark chocolate daily may help keep you healthy and happy!
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Copyright © 2008. The Healthy Basket.
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